


too much is never enough

by sundaysabotage



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beryl never stood a chance, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Study, Domestic Violence, Father-Daughter Relationship, Frederick is a disaster but he tries, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Multi, Pre-Canon, Substance Abuse, World War II, a little bit of Solangelo at the end as a treat, absolute legend Maria di Angelo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundaysabotage/pseuds/sundaysabotage
Summary: It takes a particular kind of person to attract the attention of a god. They are beguiling creatures, not of this world, and their love consumes you. Sometimes it might even kill you. But one thing is certain; too much is never enough.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Frederick Chase, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Athena/Frederick Chase, Beryl Grace/Jupiter, Beryl Grace/Zeus, Frederick Chase/Mrs. Chase, Maria di Angelo/Hades, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 31
Kudos: 114





	1. the gloves are off, the wisdom teeth are out

'Maybe she's gone and I can't resurrect her

The truth is she doesn't need me to protect her

We know the true death, the true way of all flesh

Everyone's dying, but girl you're not old yet'

Step – Vampire Weekend

**i.**

Freddie Chase is a 21-year-old history undergrad attending the finest university in the country (according to his father.) Despite growing up in Boston, attending Harvard feels like a different world in a lot of ways.

High school had been…well, Freddie was a history nerd with gangly limbs and glasses too big for his face, who spent his weekends at civil war re-enactments, how do you think it was?

But since then he had gotten new glasses, a more modern frame which make him look dignified and intellectual and he finally settled into his height. He finds that he fits into the crowd here. Granted his new friends are a bit obnoxious, but Freddie is self-aware enough to admit, so is he. Instead of frat parties and keggers, they host dinner parties with academic debates and expensive wine.

It’s all horribly pretentious and Freddie has never been happier.

He feels for the first time in his life, this is exactly where he should be. Home had been…difficult. Mother and Father were not the most affectionate of people and ever since Mother had unexpectedly passed last year Freddie feels like things are spiralling.

Randy, working on a PhD and recently engaged, threw himself into his studies whereas Nat had gone in the other direction. At 17 she was firmly off the rails. His little sister is more inclined towards chaining herself to old trees the city wanted to tear down rather than continuing the Chase family legacy.

Natalie had always loved the ‘great outdoors’ but her current brad of eco-nut nonsense is especially baffling to her family. Father, also getting on a bit in years, doesn’t have the first idea about what to do with her and Freddie is similarly clueless. He handles this the best way he knows how which is avoiding the topic entirely. Privately, he believes the best solution would be for Father to simply remarry. Find some nice, age-appropriate woman to set Nat on the right track.

A young girl needs a mother. That is just common sense.

**ii.**

He meets Athena in a crowded lecture hall. Instantly he knows there is something about her. Something venerable. Her dark hair is pulled back from her face in a ponytail and her grey eyes burn with intensity and intellect.

Half of him is in love before she even opens her mouth to tell him to stop gawking and take his seat already.

**iii.**

Truly, Freddie is tired, he worked damn hard this past year and having graduated with a BA in History he had secured a place in Harvard’s post-graduate programme to get his master’s degree. So far, his summer had been spent flitting from this party and that conference. Networking as his father called it.

He was not generally a social butterfly, but he is young and slightly brokenhearted from Athena’s swift departure shortly before graduation. He deserves to cut loose.

Later he will realise he was a fool to think the only thing Athena would give him was help earning his bachelor’s degree.

**iv.**

The baby is by far the most incredible thing Freddie has ever seen.

Fine, curling, golden hair. The smallest features. Impossibly wise storm-grey eyes. She has this way of looking at him as though she knows all the secrets of the universe and she simply doesn’t have time for him to catch up.

She can only be Athena’s daughter. His daughter.

But as objectively remarkable as she is, Freddie knows less than nothing about babies.

You must look after them, obviously. Feed them, change them, just generally make sure they don’t die. But he isn’t quite sure how to go about doing any of that.

And the baby definitely knows it.

In fact, for all his academic genius, he can’t even think of a name for her.

Freddie was by no means an expert with women but he’s pretty sure you have to actually have sex with one to get them pregnant. Pretty sure.

But apparently it didn’t work that way with wisdom goddesses because all he and Athena ever did was talk. Talk for hours and hours about history and politics and art. They drank expensive wine and laughed and debated and she was just so engaging that he hardly entertained the possibility of sex.

She told him first-hand accounts of battles and wars gone by and he was so enchanted by her that Freddie didn’t even mind the fact he couldn’t cite her as an academic source.

It was a meeting of minds. And here is the proof.

Freddie plans to get a full explanation about it when she comes to get the baby. Because she had to be coming back. Athena is a smart woman. Smart enough to realise that at just turned 22, Freddie is in no position to be a father.

He didn’t have anything against children, or this child in particular. He always assumed he would be a father someday. Someday way in the future, at least 15 years from now. So, there is no way this child can stay with him. She deserves a parent who knows how to be a parent.

It’s nothing personal, they are simply better off without one another.

**v.**

Conversation had never been an issue between Athena and himself but when she finally shows up on his doorstep after a month, Freddie is in no mood to talk. He has hardly slept since the baby arrived because despite being remarkably docile, she is still indeed a baby. One Freddie must get up and feed and soothe every couple of hours.

And he has done it entirely alone.

“You can’t expect me to keep her!” he hisses quietly, all too aware of the sleeping baby in the corner of his tiny living room in his tiny apartment. He had given in and bought a bassinet, feeling the woven basket she had arrived in was perhaps not safe enough. “I have a _life_ , Athena. You can’t expect me to give up everything I’ve worked for –“

“I didn’t think you were one for such melodrama, Frederick,” she interrupts, frowning distastefully into the cup of coffee he had offered her. It seemed like the polite thing to do at the time but come to think of it, Freddie can’t remember the last time he had washed that mug.

Oh well, it’s not like it would kill her.

Exhausted he collapses onto his messy couch, scattering a stack of baby onesies he still needed to fold. “ _I can’t do this_ ,” he groans, head in hands.

“Surely, you’ve _named_ the child, Frederick? You can manage that at least,” she says scornfully. Athena never did have sympathy for his mortal plights.

Truthfully, he had chosen specifically to _not_ name the baby because that would mean he was forming an attachment to her which was pointless since she was going back to Athena. Now caught out, he panics briefly. Despite everything, he doesn’t want Athena to think he is a fool and his brain fumbles for a name. Any name.

Chases were, at their core, a traditional people. And you could never go wrong with a good family name. Something with a bit of history to it.

Freddie’s paternal grandmother, Annabella Elisabeth Chase, had been the sort of formidable old woman upon which the archetype of stiff-upper-lipped, high society ladies had been built. According to family lore, she had also been a genius mathematician.

“Of course, she has a name,” Freddie says firmly, glancing quickly at the sleeping little girl, “her name is…Annabeth.”

“Annabeth?” Athena repeats. Sceptical.

“Annabeth Chase,” he says firmly. Well, he’s committed to it now, and there are worse names he supposes.

The baby’s grey eyes flash open, as though recognising her name, and determined to make her presence known she lets out an unsatisfied wail.

Freddie goes to pick her up and when he turns around, Athena is gone. Her cooling mug of coffee the only evidence she had been there at all.

**vi.**

Frederick Chase shows up to the first class of his post-grad with a 2-month old Annabeth strapped to his chest. He would finish his degree if it killed him. Then he’d get his PhD and he’d do it all with Annabeth in tow if he had to.

Athena would not ruin this for him.

He is going to get everything he ever wanted, and he would give Annabeth everything she ever needed. His daughter is going to be more brilliant that the two of her parents put together.

Of this, he is sure.

**vii.**

Annabeth is a precocious child. Whip smart. Perhaps too smart for her own good. Frederick tracks her development against what is deemed ‘normal’ by the parenting books and she is very advanced for her age.

It stirs an odd sort of pride in him, a burst of something warm. Unexpected in its ferocity. But he feels sorely unprepared to meet her stride for stride.

Frederick cannot help but think of all the ways in which he is lacking, and Annabeth deserves better. So much better.

After all, a young girl needs a mother and Athena had made it perfectly clear that she would not be fulfilling that role in the traditional sense.

**viii.**

Freddie goes from trust-fund brat to a Doctor of Military History and when Annabeth is four and he moves them from Boston to Virginia so he can research his first book. It is there he decides to begin the arduous task of dating.

And then he meets Helen.

She is brilliant and talented. They talk for hours and hours about history and politics and art. They drink expensive wine and laugh and debate. She is so _together_. So self-assured and most of all _stable_. She is real and flawed but she grounds him

He _needs_ someone like that.

Frederick’s thoughts have always been reckless and rapid-fire. Churning in his mind like the gears of an awkward machine.

Luckily Helen finds his absent-mindedness endearing.

This time, when he falls, it feels safe to do so.

**ix.**

He introduces Helen to his daughter. Annabeth is as frosty as a five-year-old possibly can be. They regard each other almost suspiciously.

Helen does not quite understand his history with Annabeth’s mother and Annabeth cannot fathom a need for someone else to intrude on their lives.

But it’s okay, he reassures himself. Because they are a family now and Annabeth finally has a mother.

**x.**

At age seven, Annabeth, tiny, wilful, impossibly clever and impossibly brave, runs away from home.

It is not until several months later, when the twins have started crawling, that Frederick receives a phone-call from somewhere in New York State, which informs him that his daughter is indeed alive and well.

For the first time in months he can breathe.

Annabeth is safe. She’s alive. And she’s with people who can protect her.

He writes letter upon letter, explaining, pleading, apologising and promising. He sends her his class ring.

He hears nothing back.

**xi.**

Frederick was wrong. Some little girls do not need mothers.

Annabeth always gave the appearance of never needing anyone. So independent. Wise beyond her years. Eyes that held the secrets of the universe. His little girl. Plagued by things on one else could see.

Perhaps she is better off in New York, among people like her, people who saw the same things she did, who knew the world of gods and monsters and were prepared to face it head on. 

He could never figure out what is was she needed but maybe someday he would get another chance to get it right.

**xii.**

It is not until years later, when his little girl is no longer little, somewhere between fighting in battles and holding up the sky and falling in love and falling apart, that Frederick finally understands that what Annabeth needed all along, was a father.

She has seen and done things that his plain, mortal mind cannot comprehend. He would never dare to claim credit for the incredible young woman she becomes but even so, he has never known pride like this.

Annabeth has a bright future ahead of her, a boy who loves her by her side, and a past she has put behind her. Frederick knows that his faults have been many but if his daughter is willing to forgive, then he is more than willing to try. 


	2. so take me to the paradise, it’s in your eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter contains mentions of physical violence and substance abuse.

I was there when you fell from the clouds

And landed in the desert

There was a thunder inside of my heart

There was a wonderful pleasure

American Money – BØRNS

**i.**

Beryl Grace always knew that one day she would be a star.

She has a father who is a drunk and a wife-beater and a mother who is very good at hiding bruises. Beryl feels as though the first 17 years of her life are like the awkward interlude right before the beginning of a play, that moment just before the lights go down and the curtain opens. When the theatre is rowdy, and the audience is eager for the show to start.

This is not her story; this miserable mediocrity is not going to be her reality. She is destined for greater and far more beautiful things.

**ii.**

The first time her boyfriend hits her, Beryl hits back.

They are standing in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven next to his crappy Ford pick-up, arguing viciously about something stupid.

It’s quick, a slap to the cheek, an almost girlish way of hitting. Not the worst she’s ever had, not by a long shot, but it shocks her all the same. Sure, Danny is a bit rough around the edges. He’s got a short fuse. Lord knows, she had seen him get in plenty of fights, but she never actually thought he’d be like that with _her_.

As a reflex, her hand goes to her cheek, it stings in that familiar way she’s used to. She can see Danny is shocked too, the anger drains from his face, like he can’t believe what he’s just done either.

Beryl’s hand falls away from her cheek. It clenches into a fist and just as he’s reaching for her with those ‘ _I’m so sorry, baby. I’ll never do it again’_ eyes, she bashes him across the face good and hard.

There is blood dripping from his nose and her knuckles ache but if he looked shocked before, the bastard is downright speechless now.

“You ever pull that shit again and I’ll cut your dick off. Got it?”

Danny picks up enough of his dignity to nod wordlessly.

“Good. Now take me home,” she commands.

And he does.

It is not the last time a man ever raises a hand to her, but Beryl knows, in that moment, what power feels like.

She is 15.

**iii.**

Two weeks before her 17th birthday, Beryl Grace packs up a limited selection of her worldly belongings, boards a bus, and leaves home.

She does not think of it as running away. She is merely beginning the life that was always meant to be hers. A life in the spotlight.

**iv.**

California is everything she always knew it would be and more. Los Angeles is a far cry from the worthless yokel town she was born in.

The air tastes like opportunity.

Beryl isn’t stupid, nor is she naïve. She knows she’s not the prettiest girl vying for auditions, she’s probably not even the most talented. But she wants it the most. And she’s got something about her, the kind of star quality that you’re either born with or you’re not.

She lies about her age and books the pilot of a new teen TV soap opera, playing the devious and sultry cheerleader with a complicated past who seduces the boyfriend of the main character.

It runs for 7 seasons.

**v.**

All things considered the party is unbearably dull.

A former co-star had offered her a bump in the bathroom earlier, but she had promised her agent that she’d be good tonight. Apparently, there’s some casting director floating around who looks down on that sort of thing.

Not that it stopped her before.

But since the show had wrapped, jobs weren’t coming as easily as Beryl had thought they would. She finds herself getting type-cast, which isn’t the worst thing. Beryl has no qualms about playing a villain. Everyone loves to hate a bitch. But she doesn’t want to be trapped by the limitations of 2-dimentional psycho-blondes who steal babies and poison their mothers-in-law.

She’s a star. She needs to make the transition to leading lady and it’s just not happening in LA. So, under the advisement of her agent she flew out to New York to meet with some artsy types. Try and snag a part in an indie film. Show those asshole producers that she has _range_.

She’s on a balcony overlooking Williamsburg, agitated and trying to calm herself with a cigarette when she sees him.

He is tall, almost imposingly so. Thick, dark hair, movie-star neat. He is the most handsome man Beryl has ever seen. His eyes are electric-blue, and they burn into her from across the crowded room.

She has never felt more seen.

There is something about him, a magnetism she can’t help but be drawn to. Before she knows it, she has abandoned her cigarette and is standing right in front of him, making introductions, laying on the charm, reeling him in with a coy smile and a touch of mystery, creating a character so enchanting that he can’t help but want her.

She has played this game before but never with an opponent quite like him.

Power radiates from him and Beryl is powerless to stop herself from falling.

**vi.**

She has been with many kinds of men. Good ones, bad ones, ones who worshipped the ground she walked on, and ones who walked all over her.

But she has never been with a man like him before. Because he is not merely a man. He is a god.

Beryl had never thought about settling down, why would she want to? She is only 24 and has all the potential in the world. She is pursuing a life of glory and greatness. She has been practising her Oscars’ acceptance speech in the bathroom mirror since the age of 11.

But all that pales in comparison to his love.

He makes her yearn for something. Something more. This man, this god, has the entire world in the palm of his hand and Beryl wants to know what that feels like.

His kiss tastes like endless possibility.

**vii.**

Beryl Grace is always the one to leave. She does not get left. But she can feel her lover slipping away. He had followed her readily back to LA, of course. And for a few months, life was like a dream and she never wanted to wake up.

But he is growing distant. Out of touch. Out of her grasp. And as he slowly leaves her, he takes his power and influence and spotlight along with him.

She needs him to stay. She needs to _make_ him stay. She is wracking her brain to figure out how when she finds out she is already pregnant with his child.

It seems like the only way to keep him close.

Motherhood is an abstract thing in her mind, detached and removed from her goal. What Beryl pictures is a golden palace in the sky. Somewhere she can be adored for all of time. A place from which she can rule the world.

**viii.**

Thalia is born at the mouth of Christmas. She comes into the world angry and screaming and as time goes on Beryl has no doubt that she’ll leave it that way too.

She is not an easy child, fussy and irritable, nothing Beryl does is ever right.

Some days she wants to leave Thalia in the apartment and never come back. She is 24 and in the prime of her youth. She should be on movie posters, not stuck in her apartment with a bawling baby.

But it’s worth it when he comes.

Even if the visits are brief. Even if he is awkward with Thalia. Even if his eyes don’t light up the same when he sees her.

And at the end of the day Beryl loves her daughter. She stands over her cradle and watches her sleep, softly strokes her dark hair, and knows that just like her mother, Thalia is destined for great things.

**ix.**

He blows in and out of their lives like the wind. His wife is a jealous woman and Beryl knows that eventually he will be forced to choose.

She just expected that he would choose her.

**x.**

With dwindling resources and her lover seemingly gone for good, Beryl sets about finding work.

She hasn’t been out of the game for that long but in Hollywood 18 months may as well be 18 years. She is no longer relevant, no longer a commodity. There are a million blonde 20-somethings in Los Angeles, all scrounging for the same roles, and as her agent likes to point out, none of them have her bad reputation or a kid.

Beryl insists that her daughter isn’t an issue. She and Thalia have very separate lives. Beryl has a floundering career to save and Thalia spends her days in the care of the old lady in the apartment below theirs. An ex-Vegas show girl who chain smokes but watches her daughter for free.

Beryl thinks this is good for Thalia, it is never too soon to start encouraging independence.

After a couple of truly terrible lifetime movies, she gets a part as a series regular on another soap opera. She plays a vindictive, spoilt trophy wife whose husband cheats with younger women. The only perk is that she gets to slap a lot of fresh-faced 19-year-olds on camera. It’s the same shallow and repetitive character she’s been playing for almost a decade now but it’s work, and it pays.

She was meant for more than this, but it will do for now.

**xi.**

When Thalia is five, he breezes back into their lives and the man she once saw as a thundering hurricane returns more mellow and ordered than she remembers. There is a flicker of that familiar storm underneath the surface but there is also a newfound sense of control. He seems like a man who’s got his priorities straight and he’s ready to be a father to Thalia.

She quits the show to be with him, to show him she is dedicated to this family, to him.

Against her better judgement Beryl falls again. _‘Maybe this time,’_ she tells herself _. ‘Maybe this time he’ll stay.’_

**xii**

Jason is a gorgeous child.

He is quiet, doesn’t tend to fuss and he sleeps soundly which new-borns rarely do. He has fair, golden hair. Like her.

He should be easier to love.

With Thalia it was easy, but that connection isn’t there with Jason. Perhaps it’s because she didn’t name him, he already feels like he doesn’t belong to her. Maybe something inside her is fundamentally broken.

She drinks a glass of gin and tries to ignore it, this feeling of dread. It doesn’t work, so she drinks another

If Thalia is silver, luminescent, and cool, then Jason is pure gold. Everything about him is bright and warm. They are both like her lover, electric eyes and straight noses, firm mouths and stubborn minds. They are powerful like him too. Beryl can see it crackling beneath their skin. ‘ _My babies_ ,’ she thinks desperately ‘ _how doomed we all are._ ’

Beryl is 30 now.

She is past the mark as far as Hollywood is concerned. She hasn’t gotten a casting call in months. The girl gone wild thing might have been cute when she was younger, but no one is willing to tolerate that kind of behaviour now. Not from her.

All she wants is to be adored. She wishes she were younger, prettier, thinner. Those things had made her rich and famous. Those things had made her powerful.

She wants, wants for something she cannot name. Love? Is that what it’s called?

No. No, it’s not that simple. It never is.

**xiii.**

_Mother_

Beryl hates that word. That label she has been branded with.

It’s written on her forehead every time she goes to an audition. It’s all people see anymore. But ‘ _mother’_ is not a role she ever wanted to play.

She wants an out.

She wants to run away like she did at 16 and never look back. Her lover is growing tired of her. It’s always the same. She begs him to take her to his golden palace in the sky, take her away from everything, make her feel alive. Powerful.

But her pleading and persisting only seems to irritate him. Beryl knows that if he hits her, she won’t have the option of hitting back.

This time when he leaves, he does so with a warning.

His wife is angry, furious. She won’t be kind to Thalia or Jason. She won’t show them mercy. They are powerful children whether they know it or not and this makes them dangerous.

He tells her to be cautious.

If Beryl had any sense of caution, she never would’ve fallen for him in the first place.

**xiv.**

She loves them recklessly, harshly. Too afraid to get too close.

She doesn’t know any other way to love them.

Beryl has the most terrible feeling that they are not hers to keep. That their time together is fleeting, and they are both so small, yet already bound for greater things.

Beryl is not wrong.

**xv.**

She’s coming for him.

The Queen of the Heavens is coming for her baby, her Jason. Thalia meets danger at every turn. Monsters lurk the streets, ready to devour her children. Beryl hasn’t left the apartment in weeks.

What should she do? What can she do? Beryl can’t protect them. She doesn’t even know how to protect herself.

Jason has an accident while messing around with a stapler. She has to take him to the ER where the nurses give her disapproving looks while her 2-year-old gets stitches. She wasn’t made for this.

Thalia is wicked to her, a feral wildcat of a child. ‘ _Good’_ , Beryl thinks, ‘ _she’ll need that to survive._ ’

What to do? What to do? Who to turn to? Where to go?

Beryl dreams of a deserted house in the middle of a forest and her former lover’s wife stands there wrapped in goatskin and gives her an ultimatum.

She will deliver Jason, or they will all die.

Beryl wakes up, pours herself a glass of gin and weeps. She knew that he was never hers to keep.

**xvi.**

The police question her for hours about Jason, and it is the best performance of her life.

A private custody deal with an ex. Very powerful man, can’t possibly divulge his identity. Signed an NDA. Army of lawyers.

Child perfectly safe.

Daughter just has a touch of the dramatics. You know how it is with young girls these days. Too much TV, rots their brains, fills them with all kinds of nonsense.

Smile.

Bat your eyes.

Don’t look happy.

But don’t look too distraught either.

Men, what can you do?

Nod.

Sign papers.

Don’t be suspicious.

It works.

She should get an Oscar.

**xvii.**

She drinks to numb the world away, dull her reality down to abstract shape and colour. Drinks until she can’t see straight and she can’t remember why she started drinking in the first place.

Thalia is disgusted by her and makes no effort to hide it. They don’t speak and when they do it turns into a fight. Thalia throws empty gin bottles at the wall and Beryl screams at her and Thalia sparks with rage and this is their life post-Jason.

After a few years of this misery Beryl wakes up, hungover, in the middle of the afternoon on an ordinary Sunday and Thalia is gone.

It strikes her in the heart. Thalia left her, just like her father left her.

She wanders around the apartment like a ghost. Sipping her gin in the eerie quiet. No more of Jason’s bubbling laughter. No more of Thalia’s loud music. Just Beryl. Alone.

Did her own mother feel this way she wonders, when she found her 16-year-old’s bed empty and clothes gone. Beryl hadn’t bothered to leave a note. And neither has Thalia.

Beryl believed her daughter was destined for greatness, and now Thalia is out there chasing it. She imagines her happy and daring as ever. She imagines Jason safe and thriving. She imagines them living lives better than the one she gave them.

Beryl drinks until she doesn’t think of them anymore.

**xviii.**

She dreams of them sometimes.

A golden little boy with a golden sword. So small. So brave. So sweet.

A young girl dripping in silver. Fierce. Angry. Mourning.

They are out there in the world, her children. She very much doubts she will see them again. They will not remember her fondly, if they remember her at all. But she loved them, in her own way, even though it was dangerous.

**xix.**

Beryl prefers to drink alone. She likes to sit and watch the box set of her old TV show. The one that had made her a star.

She needs to be reminded that it wasn’t just a dream. That she had beauty and talent and people loved her for it. She was powerful once.

The dreams have been getting worse.

She sees a pine tree on a hill, and she knows that it’s important for her to get to it. So, she starts walking uphill. Then running. But no matter how hard she tries the tree is always just out of reach. 

She sees Jason, older than she ever knew him, a child of ten or so. He’s tall for his age. The same little scar on his upper lip. Her baby. He soars through the air like the superheroes he used to love. She worries he may fall from the sky if he isn’t careful. She wants to call out but finds she cannot speak.

It’s all very upsetting and she hasn’t slept properly in what feels like forever.

She puts on what used to be her favourite dress. Strapless and gold. Tighter than it used to be, but she thinks she can pull it off. She carefully applies red lipstick and curls her hair.

She wants to banish the memories of lost children and lost opportunities.

She goes to a bar and buys several drinks. Men don’t look at her the way they used to. She feels old and foolish. She goes home.

The road swims in front of her eyes. How much did she drink? Too much. She is so tired. She doesn’t see the red light. She doesn’t stop at the intersection. The other car blares it’s horn and she swerves to avoid it. She skids right off the road. She hits a tree. She hits her head. It’s a beautiful night, the sky is clear. She can see the stars. It’s the last thing she ever sees.

Beryl Grace dies at age 40 and there is no one left to mourn her.

**xx.**

In the end she was right.

Beryl’s children lead glorious lives, hailed as heroes by others like them and the stories of their greatness are told and retold for centuries.

Their lives were not easy and not often happy. But stars who burn as bright as them are not made to last.

They are made to shine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a touch of unreliable narration about this one. If Beryl comes across as a victim it's because she sees herself as a victim. There's no excuse for shitty and neglectful parenting.
> 
> I've got a few ideas for other chapters and hopefully I'll be able to update every Sunday :)


	3. as time goes by

It's still the same old story

A fight for love and glory

A case of do or die

As Time Goes By – Dooley Wilson

**i.**

The year is 1925. Maria di Angelo is 22 and the world has entered a new age.

Maria is visiting America for the very first time. Her father is an important man and her mother is a dutiful wife and Maria is bored.

She has just graduated from university, a turbulent three years which happened to coincide with major political upheaval and the introduction of a fascist government. Maria had succeeded in earning her degree in Art History and shoving off the cobwebs of her staunch Catholic upbringing but failed to achieve the one thing her mother had wanted which was, of course, to find a husband.

In her experience, men are not particularly interested in her thoughts, only her face. The rise of fascism does not sit easily with her, but nobody wants to hear her opinions about Mussolini or his government.

Her country is in the hands of a dictator and these are dangerous times. So, Maria hides any liberal thoughts behind a sweet smile and secretly hoards old copies of the ‘ _Women_ ’ journal under her mattress.

She is not interested in finding a husband. Husbands, to her observation, are highly bothersome creatures. Inattentive, juvenile, hapless and to top it all off, her direct superior in every manner possible.

Maria does not like the sound of that at all.

Still, her parents are nothing if not indulgent and they allow her to accompany them on their travels. Perhaps there is more for her out there in the great wild world.

**ii.**

Washington DC is nothing like home.

In comparison to Italy, the United States is a rather young nation. How could it ever compare to the centuries of culture, the majesty, the artistry of Venice?

At the very least, it provides a change of scenery.

She spends her days touring their monuments and feigning interest. Her evenings wither away at parties and functions hosted by this senator and that businessman.

It is all woefully underwhelming.

**iii.**

While attending a party in D.C she keeps a glass of wine in hand despite the illegality of such an act. Maria is aware of the prohibition in this country and finds it ridiculous. Having been raised Roman Catholic she knows first-hand how forbidding a thing only makes you want it more.

Of course, in high places like this, among men who make the rules, the alcohol flows freely.

Maria sees that these people do not drink like Italians, to compliment meals and compliment life. They drink for the sake of drinking. The satisfaction of breaking rules. For the purpose of becoming uproariously drunk and revel in debauchery.

What a waste.

**iv.**

The economy here is booming.

They have too much of everything and they act as though it will last forever though it cannot. Maria’s father is an ambassador now, but she remembers lean days. The war with Turkey and then out of nowhere, the Great War. Not enough of anything and too many people.

Nothing can last forever but she won’t spoil the mood by pointing that out.

**v.**

She speaks English fluently but with an accent and American men find it charming.

She finds them distasteful in return.

Always clinging near her and talking her ear off about their family connections or latest purchases. Maria does not care about their cousin in the Department of State or their yacht moored at Colonial Beach. It’s the same superficial nonsense every time. She is beginning to regret begging to be brought along.

She stands mercifully alone, back to the wall in an isolated corner, watching the revelry.

Her black velvet gown is dripping in beading. The dropped waist elongates her form, so Maria feels taller than she is. Black silk gloves stretch over her elbows and a string of pearls loops around her throat. The earrings are ridiculously heavy, but diamonds always are. The centrepiece of her headband rests solidly in the middle of her forehead, like some kind of princess.

With a healthy dose of black eyeliner smudged around her eyes, she looks quite mysterious and feels very composed. Ready for war. Ready to stave off eager young up-and-coming businessmen, bankers, and political types.

It is not long before she is approached again but to her surprise he lacks the arrogance and directness she has come to associate with American men. He is polite, courteous, almost shy. He stumbles over words and this puts her at ease.

It’s got a specific kind of charm.

He reminds her of a Renaissance painting. Pale and pensive. His eyes glitter, almost obsidian in this light. She feels a pull. Maria has never felt so drawn to another human being before.

Then she realises. He is not a human being at all.

Standing next to her, making polite conversation about the latest Fitzgerald novel, is a god.

Maria takes a healthy gulp of wine.

**vi.**

Let’s go back for a moment.

Maria di Angelo has always been a quiet girl, though not always through her own choice. Quiet people have a habit of seeing things that others miss and Maria has seen a lot.

She has a gift.

Her Nonna had it and her mother before her and her mother before her. It had skipped her own mother but from childhood Maria has seen a world of gods and monsters layered underneath her own. An ancient magic which slips through the cracks and permeates reality and occasionally leaves marks. The faint trace of something otherworldly and divine.

Maria sees where the lines blur.

The girl in the market with a spear in hand instead of a broom, the yowl of a creature more nefarious than a stray cat, the man on the street with one eye instead of two. She learns to accept these things for what they are. To lower her eyes and keep walking. To ignore the strange and the cruel and carry on.

Immortal beings are kept alive through the human memory. At university she learns of the countless writers and artists who have kept the myths of the ancient world alive through their craft. From Shakespeare’s plays to Botticelli’s ‘ _The Birth of Venus’_ the mortal mind had never truly let the gods fade away.

Maria knows this, she just never thought she’d ever meet one.

**vii.**

“Really, it’s a masterpiece,” he says earnestly, still rambling about ‘The Great Gatsby’ as Maria clutches her wine glass in her gloved hand and tries to compose herself. “It questions the very nature of today’s society. Exposes the moral decay.”

“The critics seem to disagree,” she replies, studying how he reacts to being challenged.

He rolls his dark eyes in exasperation. “True genius is rarely appreciated in its time. But perhaps I’m biased. What did you think of it?” he asks, seeming truly interested to hear her answer.

He is the first person to ask her genuine opinion on anything in the last three days. She considers his question and decides to be truthful.

“I found it lacking,” she says. Just because he is a god, doesn’t mean she has to agree with him. “A failed attempt at moralising an inherently amoral society.”

“You don’t think this crowd could use some moralising?”

Out of the corner of her eye she sees the Governor’s wife slip out of the room with a handsome young stockbroker. Everyone else seems too caught up in the atmosphere to notice.

“I think if Christ Himself appeared before them, they would simply pour Him a glass and start talking about investment opportunities.”

“You’re a cynic.”

“I’m a realist.”

“I’m Hades,” he smiles and her heart lifts like a bird taking flight.

“Maria.”

**viii.**

They spend the next two weeks together.

He never tells her explicitly who or what he is, and she does not tell him that she knows anyway but perhaps he knows she knows and that is enough. Her trip is over at the end of June and they part ways with nothing more than a kiss on the cheek and many fantastic conversations to remember each other by.

Maria heads for France to spend the summer on the Cote d’Azur and Hades goes wherever it is that gods go when they are not flirting with young socialites over literature.

It was nice while it lasted but nothing lasts forever.

**ix.**

The year is 1929. Maria di Angelo is 26 and the world is on fire.

The stock markets have crashed. Wallstreet bankers who once flirted with her at extravagant parties, are throwing themselves off buildings and putting bullets in their brains.

Personally, it does not affect Maria’s life all that much. Taxes rise and wages stay the same, but it doesn’t mean much when your father is a diplomat. Maria wants for nothing in the world except perhaps the freedom to do as she pleases.

Maria had returned to Venice with a newfound determination. She would not settle for mediocrity in her life, no matter how badly her parents wanted her to give in to social convention, become a wife to a man she neither loves nor respects.

Instead, Maria finds a job with a small women’s magazine based in Milan. It’s a rare thing for a woman of her class to work at all but Maria doesn’t care about the money. It’s a golden opportunity and she grabs it with both hands.

Politically speaking, the magazine does not overtly lean one way or the other, but the fashion has a distinctly American feel to it, models with red-lipstick mouths which scream Hollywood. Maria travels to Milan twice weekly for meetings and in her childhood bedroom she writes reviews about books and films and art exhibitions. She gets published under a fake name but the pride she feels at having contributed something to the world is immeasurable.

But as wonderful as her job is, it is also dangerous. Their office could be raided by Blackshirts any day and it could all be ripped from her fingers.

Nothing lasts forever as Maria well knows.

**x.**

Maria is heading home after a long day spent researching lacemaking of all things for an article she’s working on when she decides to stop for a drink at a little wine bar she loves, hidden down a crack-in-the-wall side street.

It’s still early enough that there are not many people milling around. A group of women making giddy conversation, a pair of lovers tucked away in the corner, a few newly unemployed men stoically nursing a solitary glass and finally a single lone figure at the bar, a tall man with dark hair and dark eyes, sitting patiently, as though waiting for her.

If Maria is surprised, she tries not to show it as she approaches Hades at the bar.

“Well this is unexpected,” she declares in English, settling on the stool next to him.

At the sound of her voice he looks up from the wine list, startles almost, as if he cannot believe she’s really here.

“Would you believe me if I told you this was a coincidence?” he asks in Italian, which she appreciates.

“I wouldn’t be half so flattered if it was.”

He smiles widely. “Then it’s not a coincidence.”

**xi.**

Perhaps this time Maria is simply better situated to fall in love. She has lived a little more, seen things, travelled, learned to stand up for herself a bit.

Hades is much the same and she supposes that for him, four years seems like nothing at all. Like the blink of an eye.

He is as ancient as the earth, a son of Time itself, but he doesn’t know Venice nearly as well as she does so Maria shows him everything. And somewhere between midnight gondola rides and afternoons visiting the museums around Piazza San Marco where he listens to her rambles about each and every painting, Maria falls completely in love.

“You are not married,” he comments one evening over dinner al-fresco at her favourite restaurant. She gets the sense he has been wanting to ask about this for a while but was worried about insulting her.

“Men find me off-putting,” she says bluntly.

He frowns in disbelief, dark eyes scanning her face as though looking for some obvious malformation. “I doubt that very much.”

“I am the typical _donna crisi_. My every breath insults their delicate fascist sensibilities,” she replies, and he smirks at her sarcasm.

“Nonsense, my love. You’re too short to be so terrifying.”

“It’s true,” she continues with false solemnity. “No marriage prospects at 26, a university degree and a job I am devoted to. Respectable men cower before me.”

“Well, how do you explain me?”

Maria smiles knowingly, like the answer is obvious. “You’re Greek. Nothing about you is respectable.”

“You wound me terribly.”

“Now you see why I am unmarried,” she laughs.

He smiles in return and her heart soars again, an entire air-fleet taking off in unison.

Nothing lasts forever but for now she will pretend that it might.

**xii.**

In 1930, they have a daughter.

Bianca.

And she is perfect.

**xiii.**

In Mussolini’s Italy, the ideal state of being for any woman involves two things; marriage and motherhood. Maria is only interested in one of these things.

When the pregnancy became impossible to hide her parents squirreled her away in their summer house. And there, hidden in the hills surrounding Lake Garda, alone save for the local midwife, Maria gave birth to her daughter.

She returned to Venice some three months later with Bianca in her arms and for the sake of appearances a gold wedding ring she bought for herself on her left hand.

The di Angelo family spin a nice story about their daughter’s whirlwind romance with a serviceman stationed abroad and people roll their eyes and whisper but there’s nothing they can prove. They find her a nice apartment close to their townhouse which overlooks the canal and her mother visits every day. They don’t understand or approve of her choices, but she is their only child and they have been in political spheres long enough to know how to weather a scandal.

Maria doesn’t care. She loves her life, even if it isn’t conventional.

It’s not the kind of life her parents wanted for her, but it’s certainly not boring.

**xiv.**

In 1932, they have a son.

Niccolò.

And he is perfect.

**xv.**

They both look like her.

Olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes. Fine, delicate features, like fairy children.

Bianca adores her brother, dotes on him and torments him in equal measure. She calls him Nico for short and it’s a sweet name, so Maria allows it to stick.

Truthfully, she prefers his proper Christian name, _Niccol_ _ò_.

Victory of the people.

It gives her hope that one day her son would see their country removed from the grip of dictatorship. An Italy where it’s citizens could live without fear and each person is free to be their truest selves. Nico and Bianca deserve to grow up in a world like that.

A softer, kinder world.

Maria hopes that she will live to see it too.

**xvi.**

Hades visits more regularly than she had expected him to. She knows he loves her, loves their children, and wants to give them the world.

Maria does not want the world.

She is happy with her little corner of Venice. Their family walks along the canal, afternoon cups of coffee while the children eat gelato and tease each other, Sunday morning Mass in Basilica San Marco, entertaining Bianca and Nico with tales of her Nonna’s old ghost stories, a solitary glass of wine on her balcony as the sun sets.

Maria cannot imagine any other life for herself.

**xvii.**

The year is 1937. Maria di Angelo is 34 and the world looks uncertain.

Hades offers her a golden palace in his kingdom. A permanent place by his side. All the riches in the world.

It sounds like a beautiful prison. And she tells him as much.

It flares a temper she rarely sees in him and she is reminded he is a god.

“It’s not safe. Have you seen what’s happening with Germany?” he asks, as though Maria has not read the newspapers or turned on a radio in the last six months and doesn’t know that Italy joining the Anti-Comintern Pact may lead them down a very dangerous path.

“The world is going mad, Maria. It’s only a matter of time.”

But Maria cannot think like that.

When she was a girl, Europe fought the Great War. The war to end all wars. Men rotted in trenches across Belgium and France. Widows sobbed openly in the streets and children were orphaned. And when it was all over and the dead were laid to rest, everyone had looked around and told themselves and each other that they would never let it happen again. They would never let the world fall to such chaos and ruin. Maria must believe that promise will be upheld.

“Papà says it won’t come to anything,” she replies dismissively.

She tries her best to believe it.

“Don’t be naïve.”

“Then don’t speak to me like I am! Bianca, Niccolò and I are staying here.”

He doesn’t like her answer and her refusal to give in drives a wedge between them. Eventually he stops coming to visit and Maria starts calling herself a widow.

No one questions it.

She is saddened because despite her protests she does love him. Maria is not ungrateful for the offer, but Hades already has a wife, a queen for his kingdom, and Maria never liked that title anyway.

He may rule the realm of the dead, but Maria is fully alive. Venice is her city, her see of power, a queendom of her very own. It is where she grew up and where her parents are and where her children call home.

After all, nothing lasts forever. Life goes on and Maria has no need of a man or a god.

**xviii.**

The year is 1939. Maria di Angelo is 36 and the world is balanced on a knife edge.

On September 1st Germany invades Poland and Great Britain declares war on Germany and just like that the world is at war once again.

Maria holds her breath and prays along with her neighbours and family and friends. 

She hates the fact he was right.

**xix.**

The year is 1940, Maria di Angelo is 37 and the world is falling apart.

France is going to fall. They say it could happen any day now. Maria can barely eat, barely think.

She tries to distract herself from it, like she used to ignore the monsters on the street. Head down, eyes averted. But it’s getting harder and harder to ignore.

Dunkirk falls, allied soldiers fleeing across the English Channel, and German troops start heading south, Hitler’s sights set on Paris. On June 10th Italy officially declares war on France and Great Britain and twelve days later France signs an armistice, surrendering to the Nazis.

Maria goes to Mass on Sundays and weeps while she prays, head veiled and bowed, and tries to make sense of what the world is coming to.

Men fighting wars. Men making policy. Men tearing one another apart on and off battlefields.

She listens to the radio to drown out the sound of soldiers yelling in the street and planes droning overhead. She holds her children close and she prays.

Becoming a mother has made her cling to religious ritual. Convent school had been a trial and Latin never felt right on her tongue, but she looks at Bianca and Nico and they are so fragile, so innocent, so vulnerable to the wickedness of the world.

It makes her yearn for the benevolence of a higher power.

**xx.**

It does not take much to convince her father to defect. Signor di Angelo is a man who loves his country and despises what it has become.

They make the decision to leave and go first to London to stay with extended family who had fled long before the start of the war.

Maria has a terrible feeling she will never see the streets of Venice again.

**xxi.**

The year is 1942. Maria di Angelo is 39 and the world is in chaos.

Somehow, she has ended up back in Washington D.C in the same hotel she once stayed in as a young woman. The décor has been updated, gone are the tacky art deco paintings and monochromatic floor tiles.

Maria is different too. She is no longer considered a young woman and there are no eligible young bachelors begging her for a dance. But her parents are safe, and her children are by her side. Maria was never fond of those raucous parties anyway.

Hades had asked her to meet him here. He had showed up on her doorstep in the days following Pearl Harbour, as the United States declared war on Japan, Germany and her own beloved Italy.

He had been desperate to speak with her, something about his brothers and a prophecy. Over the last year he has grown increasingly paranoid, never meeting her in the same place twice, certain his godly protection will fail and some horror, either man-made or divine, will strike her and the children down.

Maria isn’t scared. There are plenty of people with targets on their backs these days and she is not one of them.

Whatever this prophecy has to do with her children is a problem for another time. Zeus wants Hades to take Bianca and Nico somewhere, a special place for children like them where they will be safe. Maria thinks of the women she met in London, the ones who put their children on trains headed to the countryside, addresses of strangers pinned to their coats. Maria doesn’t know how they could stand it. She has never met Zeus, nor does she care to, but he will not dictate what happens to _her_ children, even if he is the king of the gods.

Hades suggests another solution, a place in the desert where time stands still, and Bianca and Nico can live there and be safe. But Maria did not drag her children out of a war zone to shut them away from the world and everyone they know and love. They are a family and they will stay together, she won’t hear another word about it.

Maria has never once bowed to the will of men or gods and she won’t start now.

She gives Hades a kiss on the cheek, like she did before they parted ways in 1925, a last kiss to remember her by. Maria spares a quick loving glance at Bianca and Nico, still playing chase, blissfully ignorant to the tension around them. She heads up the stairs to fetch her bags and that is the last thing she knows.

**xxii.**

The year is 1942. Maria di Angelo is 39 and she is dead.

Her children are taken to the desert where they remain for over 70 years.

When they emerge, the world has entered a new age and their story is only just beginning.

**xxiii.**

The year no longer matters now. Niccolò di Angelo is 22 and the world is at peace.

He goes by Nico pretty much exclusively now, but he remembers the name from another century. Another life.

Venice is still as beautiful as it is in his foggy memories of early childhood. The last time he was here, a stop-over on their way to the House of Hades and that nasty business with Triptolemus and the katoblepones, he didn’t have the chance to appreciate it properly.

The weather is glorious, the summer sun leaving the streets clogged with tourists, but Nico doesn’t mind. Over the years he has learned to appreciate a bit of sunshine. He is lucky that his little table next to the canal keeps him out of the worst of the foot traffic.

“This better be the best damn ice-cream in the world,” Will grumbles, handing him his order of pistachio. “That line was insane.”

“It’s gelato,” Nico corrects, “and for your information it _is_ the best in the world.”

“Whatever, so long as we get to ride in a gondola later.”

Nico rolls his eyes. “Gondola rides are for tourists, it’s a total cliché.”

“We _are_ tourists,” Will argues.

“Speak for yourself, Sunshine. I’m from here.”

They continue to bicker over their gelato but there is no severity in it. They’d planned this vacation for months and if Will really wants to ride a gondola, well, Nico will complain about it for sure but that's half the fun.

Nico has known more loss and more pain than most people should ever know in a lifetime, but nothing lasts forever, not even sadness.

He’s glad he gets to see Venice, his mother’s city, enjoying the freedom it was previously denied. He’s even more glad he gets be here with someone he loves.

He thinks Maria would like it.

She was not a traditional woman and in Nico’s more stubborn moments Hades likes to remark that he gets his wilfully defiant attitude from her.

It’s not hard to believe. After all, she named him Niccolò. _Victory of the people_.

He thinks she would be happy with how things turned out. Happy with how _he_ turned out.

Nico di Angelo is 22 and he has never felt so free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is coming out a little late but hopefully it’s worth it. I did an insane amount of research for this chapter. Given the strong historical context of Maria’s life I did a lot of reading into pre-World War II Italian and American society to try and get a feel for the kind of life Maria might have had as a wealthy politician’s daughter. There’s debate over where and when exactly Maria met Hades so I cheated a little bit. For some more background, here is a list of historical events and cultural points of interest mentioned:
> 
> • The chapter title ‘As Time Goes By’ is taken from the song of the same name, performed by Dooley Wilson for the famous 1942 film ‘Casablanca’  
> • Italy was at war with Turkey from 1911-1912, weakening their economy going into WWI. Italy fought with the Allies, (Britain, France and Russia) after officially joining the war in 1915.  
> • This further weakened the economy and going into the 1920s Italy was in the grip of a major financial crisis which coincided with the rise of fascism.  
> • Mussolini officially came to power in 1922 and installed a totalitarian regime which crushed any political and intellectual opposition.  
> • In 1868 Alaide Gualberta Beccari began publishing the journal ‘Women’ in Venice at the age of 16. Beccari wanted to spread information about feminism so her journal covered international feminist news, such as the political and social gains being made by women in France, the United States, and Great Britain. I like the idea of Maria keeping old copies and reading them as a personal act of rebellion.  
> • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ was publish in April 1925 and was seen by literary critics as a major disappointment from a promising young author. In the Chicago Tribune, H.L. Mencken called it “no more than a glorified anecdote, and not too probable at that.” (Yikes)  
> • Prohibition in the United States lasted from 1920-1933, banning the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages under constitutional law.  
> • The Wall Street Crash was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the fall of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. The crash signalled the beginning of the Great Depression.  
> • Despite earlier financial struggles, Italy fared better than most western countries during the Great Depression. Mussolini implemented a large programme of public construction projects to create jobs and increased wheat production to make Italy self-sufficient for wheat. Although taxes did increase while workers’ pay remained the same. Wealthy families like Maria’s were not affected too much.  
> • The Voluntary Militia for National Security or the Blackshirts (named for their distinctive uniform) were a government-sanctioned paramilitary organisation, similar to the SA in Nazi Germany. They often used harsh violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents.  
> • According to fascist propaganda the ‘donna crisi’ (crisis woman) was slim, intellectual, sterile, urbanized, cosmopolitan and dressed according to current fashion. Her counterpart the ‘donna madre’ was the exact opposite and fascism’s ideal image of womanhood; she was the typical rural mother, simple but not beautiful, who dedicated her life to family.  
> • In 1937 Italy joined Germany and Japan in signing the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anti-communist agreement that was primarily directed against the Soviet Union. This paved the way for the Tripartite Pact signed by the Axis Powers in September of 1940. The signees agreed “to assist one another with all political, economic and military means” when any one of them was attacked by “a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Sino-Japanese Conflict.” The specific wording of the pact is seen as a warning to the U.S which had yet to enter the war directly.  
> • The surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii was a preventive action on behalf of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service to keep the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.  
> • The day after the attack President Roosevelt called for a formal declaration of war on the Empire of Japan and Congress obliged his request less than an hour later. On December 11th, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States in support of Japan. Congress issued a declaration of war against Germany and Italy later that same day, officially bringing the United States into World War II.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from 'Too Much is Never Enough' by Florence + The Machine which is a seriously beautiful song and the overall vibe for these stories. 
> 
> In my opinion not enough is known about the mortal parents. Like, these are people who managed to get divine beings to fall in love with them. Each chapter will be a different mortal parent but I don't know how many I'll write.


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